The entire purpose of an RPG is immersion. Though most people confuse immersion with lore.

No, the entire purpose of any game is entertainment. Immersion is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with that goal. Examples of entertaining immersion include: realistic sounds, nice graphics, and good dialogue. Examples of annoying immersion include: separate skill grinds, hunger mechanics, realistic bag sizes, encumbrance, ammunition, perma-death, aging, and realistic travel times. If the entire purpose of an RPG is immersion why isn't the boat ride from Stormwind to Kalimdor taking you several months? Considering the amount of time you've spent on boats, shouldn't your character be a few hundred years old by now? Why hasn't old age sapped their strength yet?

Originally Posted by CandyCotton Marshmallows

People need to get over the gear color (and themselves). It doesn't matter, and it shouldn't matter what other players have either. Worry about your damn self. Live your life by that. If you want to concern yourself with someone else, then worry about HELPING them, not putting them down or making sure you stand out as better than them.

Maybe the game would be better with more low DPS nice guys and fewer high DPS jerks? -- Ghostcrawler, Twitter, 6/29/13

What originally attracted me to WoW was the immersion, which resulted from having a world that actually felt like a world. There was more content in the game than I could possibly do, so I didn't stress about "seeing all the content" and rather focused on exploring different aspects of the game and focusing on a few that I liked (5 mans + tradeskills). That filled my play times and I was happy. There was variety and I felt like I had read choices on how to play, and knew I has options to try different things in the future if my tastes changed (e.g., get into raiding or PvP).

Today's WoW is streamlined and tightly controlled. You have no choice but to do the current patch's raid, because Blizzard decided that everyone needs to do the same content at the same time. The "choice" you get is how in how many difficulty modes you want to grind that same content. It's the same with things like questing. I've always disliked questing and in vanilla I probably did about 10 quests total. But then they decided everyone needs to do questing to "see the content" and made it into a mandatory on-the-rails experience (if you don't do all of it you will be in a crappy phase).

No, the entire purpose of any game is entertainment. Immersion is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with that goal. Examples of entertaining immersion include: realistic sounds, nice graphics, and good dialogue. Examples of annoying immersion include: separate skill grinds, hunger mechanics, realistic bag sizes, encumbrance, ammunition, perma-death, aging, and realistic travel times. If the entire purpose of an RPG is immersion why isn't the boat ride from Stormwind to Kalimdor taking you several months? Considering the amount of time you've spent on boats, shouldn't your character be a few hundred years old by now? Why hasn't old age sapped their strength yet?

Playing Project Zomboid now, a zombie apocalypse RPG. And you know what, without hunger mechanics, bag sizes, encumbrance, ammunition and realistic travel times it would SUCK.

We can agree that it depends on a game. Right now Blizzard is creating a game way different than back in 2005, so bringing back the "immersion aspects", like hunter ammo, keys, soul shards or vanilla-style dungeons is impossible. Everything is focused around a fixed goal, not a journey, making WoW less of a RPG and more of a multiplayer action game, with small doses of RPG in it. Which is better - asking this question is like comparing Call of Duty to Hearthstone.

No, the entire purpose of any game is entertainment. Immersion is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with that goal. Examples of entertaining immersion include.....

Entertainment is key, but your definition of it is hardly universal. The micromanagement factor is one of the selling points of more than a few titles in the RPG genre, and certainly makes itself evident in MMO's as well. Strip away enough of that, and you wind up with a game that is really more of an action title, and a pretty poor one at that.

Last edited by melodramocracy; 2014-01-23 at 08:12 PM.

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I still prefer seeing Thrall rather than blood in my urine, that doesnt make him a good character. - Verdugo

If the entire purpose of an RPG is immersion why isn't the boat ride from Stormwind to Kalimdor taking you several months? Considering the amount of time you've spent on boats, shouldn't your character be a few hundred years old by now? Why hasn't old age sapped their strength yet?

There's a difference between real-world immersion and fantastical immersion. Technical limitations also apply (the most obvious being Kalimdor and EK are separate maps)

Graphics are not far and away the #1 immersion factor, imo. Here's a small list of things I think are above it:

Actually as a person who enjoys immersive environments; books, movies, worldbuilding etc. I would've liked the boat rides to be a lot longer. People just don't like difficulty anymore. Players these days just want the world to be their whored-out oyster.

... why... WHY would you resurrect this thread, OP?! You just couldn't leave it be, could you?
Regardless how one looks, while few and I mean VERY FEW old ideas are good, the rest are simply god awful and it's a good thing they were removed.

Playing Project Zomboid now, a zombie apocalypse RPG. And you know what, without hunger mechanics, bag sizes, encumbrance, ammunition and realistic travel times it would SUCK.

I stand corrected. However, those aspects are likely the focus of the game. I haven't played, but judging from other Zombie apocalyptic scenarios, your key goal is to live as long as possible without being mauled by a zombie. The goal of WoW is to participate in epic battles and take down world-sized threats. That involves much more travel than raiding the local convenience store for guns, ammo, and food so that you can escape death one more day. I guess it all depends on the scope of the RPG you're playing. I still don't think that any of those mechanics are right for a game like WoW. It's one thing to have to trek over to the convenience store to load up on ammo when the object of the game is to do just that. It's another to run out of ammo mid-raid, cause a wipe, and put a stop to the everyone's experience so that you can go back to the auction house to purchase a few more stacks of rounds.

Originally Posted by CandyCotton Marshmallows

People need to get over the gear color (and themselves). It doesn't matter, and it shouldn't matter what other players have either. Worry about your damn self. Live your life by that. If you want to concern yourself with someone else, then worry about HELPING them, not putting them down or making sure you stand out as better than them.

Maybe the game would be better with more low DPS nice guys and fewer high DPS jerks? -- Ghostcrawler, Twitter, 6/29/13

The goal of WoW is to participate in epic battles and take down world-sized threats.

2.4

The goal of WoW is to participate in epic battles and take down world-sized threats.

3.3

The goal of WoW is to participate in epic battles & get epic loots for our item level.

4.3

Get epic loots for our item level, get dem numbers, get dem achievements.

5.4

Get epic loots via LFR for the noobs, get dem numbers, get dem achievements.

Nobody cares about participation anymore. They care about their character's numerical progress and nothing else. There is no 'togetherness' in the struggle to get any achievable goal anymore. Players, especially on this forum made the game anti-social to the nth degree.

... why... WHY would you resurrect this thread, OP?! You just couldn't leave it be, could you?
Regardless how one looks, while few and I mean VERY FEW old ideas are good, the rest are simply god awful and it's a good thing they were removed.

I like to keep a good topic going. All the QQ on the front page made me sad and I wanted to wrap myself in something more positive.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

No, the entire purpose of any game is entertainment. Immersion is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with that goal. Examples of entertaining immersion include: realistic sounds, nice graphics, and good dialogue. Examples of annoying immersion include: separate skill grinds, hunger mechanics, realistic bag sizes, encumbrance, ammunition, perma-death, aging, and realistic travel times. If the entire purpose of an RPG is immersion why isn't the boat ride from Stormwind to Kalimdor taking you several months? Considering the amount of time you've spent on boats, shouldn't your character be a few hundred years old by now? Why hasn't old age sapped their strength yet?

Sadly, Lore never equals gameplay mechanics. If they did, I would toss out the Lore and go with the mechanics. You want a Draenei warlock? No prob. Poof. Here is a red skin option for your space goat. He is now Eredar, and you are a warlock. Makes the boat thing seem trivial.

They should bring back the openess of the world back, also some things I would like:

- Bring back the nights! Add some dangerous beasts to lurk in the shadows, also placing campfires would lure them at it
- Dark dungeons. You must use light spells and torches to see what lies deeper in the depths
- Solo "dungeons", hundreds of them across the world. Some smaller and some very large ones. Place hidden treasures and make some enemies guard them.
- Wall climbing for rogues, make it possible to blend into enemy cities. Pickpocketing merchants is more rewarding but also more risky (Elite guard search parties looking for you if caught) Could also pickpocket friendly merchants.
- Class quests back
- Separate small "5 min faceroll" dungeons with much longer dungeons with shortcuts and separate wings etc.

Not all want streamlined gameworld, some players enjoy immersing with it (Without it going LARP).

I love how all the present day WoW fanboys just wave away the death of immersion with "Well, immersion is a subjective poorly understood thing so it means nothing!"

It's a little a long the lines of "Your memories are bogus and just nostalgia" argument.

They know they can't refute the actual argument so they just declare the entire basis for it invalid.

It's a neat little trick.

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Originally Posted by Zolascius

Nobody cares about participation anymore. They care about their character's numerical progress and nothing else. There is no 'togetherness' in the struggle to get any achievable goal anymore. Players, especially on this forum made the game anti-social to the nth degree.

Exactly. I'm not sure what the oldschool players expect posting arguments here. The bulk of people prefer the modern WoW style, they dont want immersion and an experience and a challenge, they want stuff handed to them, they want to be shuffled through content and handed items on the gear treadmill. The vast majority of old school players who strongly desire the old expereince have quit at this point.

WoW 100% belongs to the casual instant gratification crowd now. They love what WoW is, which is no big surprise, because it's a game built specifically for their preferences.

I can't remember wow ever having immersion...having people run around shouting noob at each other or barking out commands doesn't really help..if i want immersion i play a game like skyrim, fallout, mass effect or infamous..not an mmo, other people just ruin immersion for me >.<

I can't remember wow ever having immersion...having people run around shouting noob at each other or barking out commands doesn't really help..if i want immersion i play a game like skyrim, fallout, mass effect or infamous..not an mmo, other people just ruin immersion for me >.<

Or other people are, to immerse into a game world i need to feel involved, feeling like my actions have consequences, feeling like I'm a part of that world, Wow doesn't do that all. You could whittle off a thousands things such as guild perks, talent trees, flying mounts or specs but they are just game features which have very little impact on what i consider immersion.

Or other people are, to immerse into a game world i need to feel involved, feeling like my actions have consequences, feeling like I'm a part of that world, Wow doesn't do that all. You could whittle off a thousands things such as guild perks, talent trees, flying mounts or specs but they are just game features which have very little impact on what i consider immersion.

Truth. Great rpgs have choices that affect the rest of the game's stories and characters. Good rpgs have the illusion of choice but allows players to play in very differnt ways. WoW has ultimately no choice beyond role in a group that furthers a character driven plot. But it just seems like WoW is no longer an MMORPG, but rather just an MMOG.

Originally Posted by Suffer the Consequences

Gender is irrelevant. Everyone has a penis in video games, and it is measured purely on skill. Mionelol's cock is massive.